12 Ways We Push Away the Healing We’re Praying For

Sometimes mending starts with recognizing what needs stitches.

There is a collision in Matthew 12 where Jesus shows up to a synagogue and helps everyone sort out what is hurting. You will soon see that people were spiritually wounded, physically wounded, relationally wounded, mentally wounded, and emotionally wounded. People were hurting people and hurting themselves.

And this incredible thing happens in the midst of all this hurt-Jesus invites everyone present to be stretched toward mending and restoration.

Standing in this place of worship alongside a guy whose hand is shriveled, some Jesus haters try to trap Him about healing on the Sabbath. Jesus drops a mic with a, “You would save your sheep but not a human?” And then Jesus says to the man whose hand does not work,

“Stretch out your hand.”

Imagine being this guy.

He has Restoration standing right in front of him, but think of all the reasons he might not take it.

“Really, Jesus? You are asking me to move my hand? It’s shriveled. It doesn’t work. I can’t jump rope. I can’t push a wheelbarrow. I can’t crack eggs. And you want me to stretch my hand out as though I can… on the Sabbath?”

The Sabbath was a day ridden with rules, and this guy knew any false move could get him put out to pasture.

Work was forbidden, and some defined “work” by adding 39 more rules—including forbidding carrying a burden, which was defined as anything that weighs as much as two figs.

It got so extreme that it was said if an enemy attacked you and your family on the Sabbath… you were to let yourselves be slaughtered.

If you wouldn’t fight to save your family, you certainly wouldn’t say yes to healing.

When Jesus asks this man to stretch, the man must have thought:

In front of these people, Jesus?

These were the same people Jesus had just called out for creating religious burdens, misunderstandings, wounds, distrust, toxic theology, and God slander.

You love God but hate your neighbor.
You are burden layers instead of burden lifters.
You suck the life out of what is supposed to be life-giving.
You value your rules over someone else’s rescue.

This man has every reason not to trust Jesus. And we get it. If we are honest, we do the same thing. Sometimes restoration is standing right in front of us… and we push it away.

Here are 12 ways we push healing away:

1. We push love away because love hurt us.

If our parent people hurt us, it’s hard to believe a friend won’t. If the love of our life betrayed us, it’s hard to believe a new relationship won’t. So we push love, romance, invites, help, and relationships away.

2. We make assumptions out of distrust.

We assume they won’t show up. We assume we won’t get picked. We assume they won’t stick around. We assume we won’t get the job. We assume the intended meaning of the text where they said “it’s fine” means it’s not fine when, in actuality, it is. This assumption business shuts off possibility.

3. We let our history write our future.

“I have been ____. I will be ____.” I have been unseen, I will be unseen. I have been unheard, I will be unheard. I have been unwanted, I will be unwanted. This negative hypothesizing has us taking cues from our past, planning it right into our future.

4. We are certain all promises are empty, so we test them.

People have not been trustworthy. They have told us yes, but the answer was no. They said they’d show up, but they no-showed. They said they’d pay child support, but they didn’t. They said, “To have and to hold… until death do us part,” but they didn’t. So now we assume promises are empty, and we give God and people a run for their money. We test their sincerity, their faithfulness, and how much they will put up with. If we don’t mention our birthday, will they remember? If we drop hints of loneliness, will they keep including us? If we lay all the ugly out on the first date, will they stay? Our promise testing often pushes away the very thing we long for.

5. We project onto the Restorer what is others’ to blame.

We do this all the time. It’s easier to blame our heavenly Father than our earthly one. Easier to blame Jesus than the people who hurt us. Easier to blame the church than the person in it. The Restorer could be standing right in front of you, and you won’t receive it because you are blaming Him for what someone else did. Jesus is not the one who abandoned you. Jesus is not the one who hurt you. Our misplaced blame doesn’t help our mending; it only delays it.

6. We put walls up to self-protect, which means help cannot get in.

Some of us have built such tall walls that no one can get in. Not help, not friends, not truth. And if anyone tries, we shut it down. Some of us don’t even know we’re doing it. Others of us do it on purpose. We become cold, distant, critical, unapproachable. We think these walls protect us, but they actually isolate us and leave us without the very help we need.

7. We live out of a sense of unworthiness because we became convinced it’s what we deserve.

When God is standing right in front of you offering restoration, and you are still believing you are someone else’s leftovers, someone else’s doormat, someone else’s backup plan—you are giving the person who hurt you more power than you are giving the Restorer. You are still living out of unworthiness with a God who calls you worthy.

8. We fixate on one way we think healing should happen and miss the healing in front of us.

We can become so sure of what the miracle should look like that we miss the miracle we’re being given. We want the cure. We want it now. We want it our way. But sometimes the healing is different. Sometimes it’s slower. Sometimes it’s deeper. Sometimes it’s not a changed circumstance, but a changed heart. And because it doesn’t look like what we expected, we push it away.

9. We assume it’s all or nothing.

God has to heal me, or I have to heal myself. One puts too much pressure on us, the other removes all responsibility. But healing is often both—God moving and us responding. And when we think it’s one or the other, we can get in the way of our own mending.

10. We numb the need for mending.

The pain is too much, so we reach for something to quiet it. Distraction. Addiction. Escapism. Temporary fixes that make us feel better for a moment but leave us worse in the long run. Numbing fools us into thinking we are healed when we are actually just avoiding the wound.

11. We protect other people at our own expense.

We stay quiet. We cover up. We make them comfortable while we fall apart. We don’t tell the truth because we don’t want to make waves. But every time we protect others at the expense of our own healing, we stay stuck. Silence might protect them, but it keeps us from mending.

12. We say “someday.”

Someday I’ll deal with it.
Someday I’ll say something.
Someday I’ll get help.
Someday I’ll heal.

But someday has a way of never coming.

I write so much more about this in my book, if you want to go deeper.

The man with the shriveled hand could have so easily said, “not today, someday.” Restoration is standing right in front of him. And he has every reason to say no.

And yet… he stretches.

And Jesus heals him in the stretch.

Friend, may you and I stop pushing the healing away and instead risk stretching toward the healing we long for.

XOXO,